In a letter issued Tuesday, the four European member states of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), Britain, France, Germany and Portugal, condemned the recent Israeli announcement that the Israeli government had approved the construction of 1,000 new settlement units in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In addition, South Africa, India and Brazil condemned the expansion.

Considering the request for admission of Palestine to UNESCO submitted in 1989, and reiterated
at each session of the General Conference,

Having noted that Palestine accepts UNESCO’s Constitution and is ready to fulfill the obligations
which will devolve upon it by virtue of its admission and to contribute towards the expenses of the
Organization,

Statistics on Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons reveal that the Israeli occupation forces arrested since 1967, more than (750) thousand Palestinians, including tens of thousands of children and women, and among them more than (70) thousand cases of arrest recorded since the start of the Aqsa Intifada in September 2000.